BlackBerry’s Chief Executive Officer Thorsten Heins took the stage on Wednesday to present the new BlackBerry 10.

The new phone seems interesting enough. It’s just a shame that the presentation was so stale and lifeless.

Ever since the late Steve Jobs invented the rock-and-roll presentation style in the late ’90s, a charismatic keynote presentation that became iconic of his time as CEO, dozens of other major tech companies have attempted to follow suit.

But here’s the thing, Jobs was world’s greatest corporate storyteller.

Steve Jobs presents the iPhone in 2007.

Every tech CEO that trundles around a stage to unveil a new product is invariably going to draw comparisons between themselves and Jobs. Unfortunately, they will all fall short of the gold standard.

In the case of BlackBerry on Wednesday, it was painfully obvious that the company should have let their Head of Software Portfolio, Vivek Bhardwaj, present the new phone. Not only did he seem comfortable on stage, but he also had a profound and deep knowledge of the phone that far surpassed that of Heins. He was more relaxed, more conversation and more familiar with the device.

But heaven forbid that a company doesn’t stroke their CEO’s ego and allow them to play rockstar for the day. Mark Zuckerberg and people of his ilk may be digital visionaries, but that doesn’t mean they possess extraordinarily high levels of charisma or presentation skills.

With that in mind, here are six tech CEOs who shouldn’t try to double as presenters.

6. CEO: Thorsten Heins

Company: BlackBerry

Thorsten Heins is a good executive. He’s not great on stage.

5. CEO: Mark Zuckerberg

Company: Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg has ditched the hoodie of his youth, but not the stiff speaking style of a technocrat speaking to other geeks.

4. CEO: Steve Ballmer

Company: Microsoft

Steve Ballmer looks like kind of like a crazy uncle, and his presentations often feel like being sat down for another one of those stories that don’t end.

3. CEO: Tim Cook

Company: Apple

Tim Cook tries desperately to emulate his predecessor, and he’s not the worst of the worst. But inviting the comparison to Jobs – the master of the reality distortion field – never turns in his favour.

2. CEO: Larry Page

Company: Google

Larry Page. That background is, oddly enough, the perfect metaphor for his speaking style: sharp, colourful, but kind of odd and you’d never want it in your home.

1. CEO: Paul E. Jacobs

Company: Qualcomm

Paul E. Jacobs is the presenter with the most gusto, we’ll give him that. His presentation at the Consumer Electronics Show left attendees wondering what they had smoked. Few of them were talking about his products, though.

Mike MacDonald is a news editor and writer at Postmedia. His writing also appears weekly in The Onion. When not working, Michael can be found playing crunchy grooves on his ukulele in his Toronto home... read more.View author's profile